Professional Amateurs (Frank Barcelos)

     With a plethora of platforms to share blogs, photos, news, etc. everyone has the chance to post up their own content. All they need is internet connection. Once connected, they have the opportunity to create and share to the rest of the world. This creates the line between professionals and amateurs. It is also what Clay Shirky calls as "mass amateurization." By this, Shirky means that due to the easy access of weblogs and other sites, the public is able to post what they want, when they want, and to reach some sort of an audience, big or small. For example, professionals, such as actual journalists, and professional photographers, are almost in competition with others who don't have a profession in journalism and in photography. Because of the popularity of blogs and digital cameras, almost everyone's doing it now!

Blogger Meme

     The outcome of easily publishing content, leads to a large variety of people to do so. Shirky explains that because of this, there is more news coming out. He writes, "The mass amateurization of publishing undoes the limitations inherent in having a small number of traditional press outlets" (Shirky 65). With more people posting about some sort of event, there will always be new angles. The large number of people who publish their content, whether it be original art or news articles, though they may be amateur, the masses are able to reach above the limits on what a regular news outlet would be.

     Media publishing has changed where now, almost anyone can call themselves a "journalist." Regular bloggers may try to get the same advantages or access of professional journalists, even they did not go to school for it, or work under a press company. Shirky writes, (if anyone can be a publisher, then anyone can be a journalist. And if anyone can be a journalist, then journalistic privilege suddenly becomes a loophole too large to be borne by society.. Imagine, in a world where any blogger could claim protection, trying to compel someone to testify about their friend's shady business: 'Oh, I cant testify about that. I've been blogging about it, so what he told me is confidential.'"(71-71). With mass amateurization, there would be a bunch of cases similar to this one! The advantages they would gain, just because they are post on a blog, devalues the work of professional journalists.

     

     Of course, some people will get more attention and more of an audience than others. Shirky puts it this way, "Fame is simply an imbalance between inbound and outbound attention, more arrows pointing in than out" (Here Comes Everybody, Shirky 91). "Amateurs" who publish, and do not have much of a following, have a different dynamic between consumers, than consumers to larger media outlets. The public who consumes the news from these so called amateurs, are able to get an interaction with the publisher. The communication is there. With the rise of mass amateurization, this would be quite common!

Photo taken by Janis Krum by an iPhone

     Easy publishing has given an opportunity to non-journalists to act like journalists. There's a special name for these type of people, and they're also known as “mojos.” With smartphones, there are certain events that can happen spontaneously where professional reporters will not be able to attend right away. For example, with the plane that made its miracle landing on the Hudson, someone who was just in a rescue boat took the photo of the plane right off of a smart phone. With cameras that can now take amazing quality just from a phone, a person just has to be in the right place at the right time. Janis Krums, the man who took the famous photo of the plane on the Hudson, was not a photojournalist. Though he did do “journalism,” he still was not considered a journalist. Easier publishing just gave Krums an outlet to share what he had taken from his phone. Krums is just one example of many people who do the same thing. Without actually studying in the journalism field with topics such as ethics, or methods on how the work is done, citizens can still be acting or freelance journalists through the help of the internet. Overtime, people who are not working in major or minor media outlets still consider themselves as journalists.
     I feel like the future of the media professional is just someone who can do exemplary work, and is able to reach the masses. Though "mass amatuerization" is a thing, not many people would get as far as to reaching hundreds of thousands of people. It's through this large amount of amateurs where some will stick out. If they are able to show the public what makes them different, and get an income out of it, then in my opinion, thats is the media professional. The traditional way of being a professional is always there, but because of easier publishing on the web, some amateurs may grow.

Work Cited

             Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations.                                   New York:  Penguin, 2008. Print.